Death Dance (25 page)

‘Yes.’

‘Bit heavy, weren’t they, for carting around?’

‘I’m used to it. They don’t bother me.’

‘Are you sure you can’t remember where you walked?’

Kyle frowned. ‘I walked down the High Street.’

‘Which is where the library is situated.’ So it went without saying that he’d been there. ‘Can you remember anywhere else?’

‘I was on Bacon Lane, I remember that.’

The back entrance to the police station was on Bacon Lane – an unfortunate name given the porcine epithet that was often thrown at the police.

‘What about after that? Can you remember where you went?’

Kyle was quiet for a moment, and then shook his head. ‘I wasn’t really taking lot of notice. I had a lot on my mind. I was thinking.’

‘About what?’

‘Just school stuff.’

‘Not about your stepmother and your relationship?’

‘No. I’ve always done my best not to think about her at all.’

‘Was your relationship with her that bad?’

Kyle didn’t answer.

John Staveley butted in. ‘If there’s nothing else, Inspector, Kyle’s got homework to do.’

Rafferty admitted defeat for now and allowed himself to be shown out. ‘Oh, well,’ he said, once they were outside with the door shut firmly behind them, ‘it was worth a try.’

So, where did that leave them? For the most part, with the men in the case — the Staveleys, father and son, Oldfield, Peacock and Simpson. Also, he couldn’t discount Staveley’s sister and brother-in-law, the Aylings. Between his lustful stalking of Adrienne and her jealousy, they provided a pretty pair of motives.

And then there was Mrs Staveley Senior, who had the bodily strength to strangle Adrienne and plenty of reasons for wanting to do so. She hadn’t lied to them. She had more or less admitted that she and Adrienne hadn’t seen eye to eye and she seemed the sort of woman who would act decisively to save her son from a distressing marriage and possibly even more distressing divorce, Though Rafferty found it hard to imagine her or Helen Ayling strangling Adrienne, he couldn’t afford to discount them.

He mentioned his earlier thoughts to Llewellyn once they were back in the car and suggested they pay Mrs Staveley a visit. They drove out of the narrow streets of Elmhurst and after they had wound their way through the lanes, reached The White Farmhouse, where she was currently staying.

Edith Staveley was cool, but perfectly polite when she opened her son’s front door. ‘Inspector,’ she said. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘Can we come in, Mrs Staveley?’ he asked.

She nodded and stood back. ‘I think you know where the drawing room is.’

Rafferty nodded and led the way. She invited them to sit down and did so herself. He noted that her back had now regained its former straight posture, though, perhaps, it wasn’t quite as upright as formerly.

‘I was out earlier, but my son told me you’d been here questioning Kyle again. He’s only a boy. Surely you can’t think he had anything to do with Adrienne’s death?’

Rafferty forbore from mentioning the several cases in recent years where kids younger than Kyle had killed or seriously injured someone, but simply told her, ‘We can’t discount anyone, Mrs Staveley. Kyle’s a big lad for his age and more than capable of finding the strength required to strangle a small woman like your late daughter-in-law.’

She was silent for several moments as she digested this. Then she said, ‘So am I, Inspector. And I had no more reason to like Adrienne than Kyle did.’

‘I know that. Did you kill her?’

Mrs Staveley hesitated a moment, then shook her head. ‘No. I didn’t kill her. Though if it would take suspicion off my grandson, I wish I had.’

‘You said you were at home around the time your daughter-in-law died and that nobody can confirm it, is that right?’

‘Yes. Something unavoidable when one lives alone.’

‘Of course. Tell me — how much did you dislike Adrienne?’

‘A lot,’ she told them frankly. ‘I thought she was a most unsuitable wife for my son and the worst possible stepmother for Kyle. I wanted them to divorce even before John was made redundant, but he wouldn’t hear of it. Said the disruption would be bad for Kyle after he’d already lost his mother.’ She issued an unladylike short. ‘As if living with her wasn’t bad for Kyle. Any disruption would be welcome to get that woman out of their lives.’

‘Even the disruption that her murder has caused?’

She hesitated, and then said, ‘Yes. Even that.’

Well, thought Rafferty, at least she was honest. After all the lies it made a refreshing change. ‘Well, thank you, Mrs Staveley,’ he said as he stood up. He didn’t bother to say they’d see themselves out, remembering her insistence on doing this herself on their first visit to her home. He just assumed the same stricture applied in John Staveley’s house.

They drove back to the station and Llewellyn typed up the details of their latest interviews. They didn’t take him long: he had undergone a touch-typing course some years earlier and was the fasted typist on the team and that included the female admin staff.

‘Might as well get a very late lunch,’ said Rafferty. ‘Anywhere you fancy?’

‘Let’s try The Black Swan,’ said Llewellyn to Rafferty’s surprise. He had expected the Welshman to suggest The Red Lion, the cappuccino crowd’s hangout. ‘They serve meals all day,’ he explained.

Rafferty nodded. ‘The Black Swan it is. Come on, before Bradley waylays us.’

They set off and managed to avoid any waylaying.

Chapter Seventeen

When they got to The Black Swan, and had ordered their drinks and their meals – mushroom omelette and chips and mixed salad with jacket potato – Rafferty put his Adnams bitter down, and admitted, ‘I really have no idea where we’re going with this case. Every potential lead takes us to a dead end with no proof to help us climb over the wall.’ He acknowledged it was an admission, as the Senior Investigating Officer on the case, that would probably be better left unsaid. He was meant to be leading from the front in the investigation. – the ideas were meant to come from him.

But in spite of his several irritating faults, Llewellyn had always been a supportive partner. He sipped his mineral water contemplatively and observed; ‘We’ve done all we can.
You’ve
done all you can. Some cases are just beyond a solution. Sometimes you just have to let go.’

‘I’m not ready to let go yet,’

‘We go on then. “
Ad astra per aspera
”.’ Llewellyn must have caught the brief flash of irritation from his boss, for he simply translated: ‘To the stars through difficulties.’

Rafferty didn’t trouble to enquire which Ancient Roman smartarse had coined the phrase, but simply raised his glass and said, ‘I’ll drink to that. The first bit anyway.’

‘On every case we’ve conducted, it seems and we – you – always got the answer in the end.’

‘I did, didn’t I?’ Rafferty grinned, raised his glass again and said, ‘So here’s to me, a smartarse modern London-Irish lad.’ He took another sip of his beer. ‘But this might just turn out to be the case where I fail.’

‘It’s not like you to be so defeatist.’

‘Normally, I’ve got somewhere to go, but on this one, we’ve already been over the statements twice more, with precious little to show for our efforts. We’ve questioned the suspects till I can think of nothing else to ask them.’

Llewellyn nodded solemnly, but brought forth no more words of encouragement in Latin or English.

Their meals arrived and they ate them in silence. Llewellyn finished his simpler meal first and laid his cutlery neatly side by side, dead centre of the plate.

Rafferty let his knife and fork land where they would, atop the pile of chips that he’d barely eaten.

Llewellyn finished his mineral water, and said, ‘Perhaps we should get back.’

Rafferty nodded, downed the rest of his beer and stood up. His feet dragged as they headed for the car park.

There was nothing of any interest awaiting them on their return — not even Superintendent Bradley. The idle sod was presumably still chucking back the booze at the retirement do. Maybe it would make him forget to get a further update on his return.

Rafferty glanced desultorily through the earlier statements, but nothing leapt out at him. He hadn’t expected it to. Llewellyn’s stars seemed very far away. He glanced at the clock on the wall. It was nearly five. They were achieving nothing here, so he suggested they have an early night. And at least it would enable him to escape a boozed up and probably belligerent Bradley — though he wasn’t sure that being questioned by the hung-over version wouldn’t be infinitely worse. But, as Llewellyn might say: A trouble postponed…was the better option of the two. Or something like that.

The wedding was getting nearer with no solution to the murder in sight. It was beginning to look as if cancelling the honeymoon was inevitable. It was such a shame. He’d leave it as late as possible, but he didn’t hold out much hope of a last-minute miracle.

They headed out to the car park together and went their separate ways.

Abra was surprised to see him home so early and for a moment she looked hopeful. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve solved the case?’

‘I won’t, then. No such luck, I’m afraid.’ He took the bull by the horns with a vigour not matched by the best of matadors. ‘I think we really may have to cancel the honeymoon, sweetheart.’

Abra took it surprisingly well. ‘I’ve been expecting you to say that. Never mind, it’s only a holiday, after all. It’s not as if we haven’t already had the honeymoon. We can go later in the year as we’ll get the cancellation insurance.’

Rafferty nodded uneasily, scared to let any words escape in case Abra shared his ma’s ability to sniff out evasion. He still hadn’t admitted they had no insurance. He’d just have to raid what little remained of his savings to pay for another honeymoon.

They had a scratch meal as they’d both had a late lunch and weren’t very hungry. Abra quizzed him some more on the murder investigation, but there was little enough to tell. The case was stalemated and no amount of talking would make any difference.

They sat down on the settee with a bottle of Jameson’s between them and enjoyed a few nightcaps. As he drank, Rafferty was reminded of Superintendent Bradley and he grimaced at the thought of facing him in the morning.

A similar thought seemed to strike Abra, for she asked, ‘How’s Superintendent Bradley taking your failure to solve the case?’

‘Like I’m doing it deliberately to make him look bad at Region. That man’s ‘face’ is more prideful than any Oriental’s. Thick git. Let’s not talk about him.’

Okay. What do you want to talk about?’

‘The wedding and our lives together. I want Saturday to be a happy day for both of us.’

‘It will be. You realise I’ll be going to stay at my flat the night before the wedding?’

‘Yes. I know the tradition. I should, with three married younger sisters. We don’t want to invite bad luck,’ said the ever superstitious Rafferty. ‘I’ll miss you.’

‘It’s only for one night. You’ll survive.’

‘I suppose so. Still, the flat will be empty without you.’

‘All the more reason to appreciate me while I am here.’

‘I appreciate you, Abracadabra, don’t ever think I don’t. You know I love you to bits.’

‘Ditto. Shall we go to bed? It seems to have been a long day one way and another.’

‘My day’s been a bit like that, too. It seems to have gone on forever, even though we packed it in early t tonight. Yes. Let’s go to bed. I could do with a good night’s sleep.

‘I wasn’t thinking of sleeping,’ Abra told him.

In spite of his low spirit, Rafferty found a grin from somewhere.

It was two days before the wedding and Rafferty was losing hope about the case and the honeymoon. But then something broke that gave him renewed reason to think that, after all, they might yet crack the case and get away.

Another witness had come forward to state that they had seen Gary Oldfield near the Staveley’s house around 5.35 on the evening of the murder.

Rafferty was exuberant. ‘He lied to us again. How come his car didn’t show up?’ He slapped the desk and answered his own question. ‘Stupid of me — didn’t he have a whole yard full of vehicles to choose from? He could easily have walked from his flat to the car lot wearing a hoodie so the CCTV cameras couldn’t show up his features. He had the keys to the key cabinet, so could take whatever car he fancied so his own didn’t show up on CCTV.’

‘It’s a possibility, certainly,' said Llewellyn cautiously.

‘It’s more than that. It’s more than likely. Crafty sod. This witness should help us nail him. Let’s get over there and bring him in.’

‘Don’t you think it might be a good idea first to send an officer to the used car lot to make a note of all the registration numbers and then to see if one matches up to the CCTV footage near the Staveleys' home?’

‘You’re right, of course.’ Rafferty reined in his enthusiasm. ‘It’ll strengthen our arm when we question him again. Though, if you were a betting man, I’d be willing to offer odds that if he did use one of the vehicles from the yard, he’s got rid of it by now. Probably paid some joyriders to take it and burn it out.’

But before they could get this check organised, one of the team came in with the news that Harry Bentley had used his mobile at last. They’d traced him to a house on Danes Road.

‘Danes Road?’ Rafferty repeated. ‘Not number 35, by any chance?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said a bemused Gerry Hanks. ‘How did you know that?’

‘Because I’m the Oracle, Gerry,’ Rafferty told him. He grinned tightly. ‘Never mind. It doesn’t matter.’ Silently, Rafferty cursed. Bloody Nigel. Called himself an estate agent and he couldn’t even take down an address properly.

It was several hours later by the time they’d sorted through the relevant CCTV tapes to see if Garry Oldfield had used one of the car lot’s vehicles.

Rafferty’s eyes felt as bleary as on the morning following his stag do after staring at the screen so long. But this was something he wanted to check for himself. It turned out to be a well-earned bleariness — his had been the eyes that had caught one of the cars from the used car lot out on the road when it should have been safely tucked up in the yard. Llewellyn had been right. It had been a good idea to wait and get the second piece of evidence against Oldfield.